ABSTRACT
Every ethnography begins with the identification of the particular community studied: a group of people with similar experiences and expectations, who can most often understand each other’s intentions, who generally share a language, and so forth.1 This ethnographic study of intercultural weddings is unusual in examining the combination of different communities through the ritual of wedding ceremonies, investigating not one but the overlap between multiple communities.2 This change in emphasis reflects the shift taking place more gen¬ erally in the field of anthropology (although it has not had as much influence on the field of communication as yet). Sherry Ortner (1991) provided a good summary of the logic behind the change in focus:
In the past there has been a strong tendency on the part of many anthropologists studying America to “ethnicize” (the domestic version of “orientalize”) the various groups, classes, and even institutions (e.g., corporations) under study, to treat them as if they were in effect separate tribes…. There are indications now that the anthropology of America is shifting on this point (this study is part of that shift), and beginning to recognize the importance of studying the relationships between whatever unit one undertakes to study and the larger social and cultural universe within which it operates, (p. 186)
Similarly, Hannerz (1992) concluded: “one of the main weaknesses of writings on subcultures is that they often give scant attention to what happens at the interfaces within the larger culture” (p. 69)3 This study describes what happens at the interfaces, not just between one group and the larger culture surrounding it but between multiple groups.4 As Halperin (1998) pointed out: “Community is not just a place, although place is very important, but a series of day-today ongoing, often invisible practices” (p. 5). It is immediately obvious when a person crosses from one geographic community to another but, in today’s world, communities often share geographic space, and it is not always immediately obvious that different sets of longstanding but often invisible practices are in play when people from different communities interact. This book describes how real people handle the issues arising from the attempt to combine different communities’ practices.
